For your information, this message was sent from Holly Smith, Dean ofFAS-NB, to all members of the FAS Chairs' Council, for circulation among their faculty and staff.

Phil

Dear colleagues:

It's come to my attention that AAUP-AFT union officers have informed their members that Governor Corzine has assured them he plans to restore funding to higher education by funding the negotiated salary increases and the fringe benefits. Cheered by this news, I made inquiries, and it appears that the real story is rather different: while fringe benefits might be funded, the proposal regarding salary increases is only to fund half of 80% of the cost-of-living increases, which in the case of faculty are only half of the contractually committed increases. Thus the proposal would only fund about 20% of the total contracted increases, and still leave the university roughly $27.6M short in meeting its salary increases -- and would leave FAS roughly $6.5M short in meeting its salary increases. And of course there are the additional state plans to reduce our budget in other categories, or fail to fund increased costs.

We're hardly out of the woods yet, so keep up those efforts to contact your government officials to make the case for higher education. It's also worth inquiring from union representatives how their discussions with the administration are progressing, as we try jointly to find ways to meet what is clearly still a very grave problem for the state and for the university.

Best, Holly

By: Susan English Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs 83 Somerset Street New Brunswick, NJ 08901 732-932-7821 732-932-5532 (Fax) english@oldqueens.rutgers.edu